Tisa L. Silver-Canady, who counsels University of Maryland, Baltimore students about loan repayments and runs other financial education programs at the school, realized toward the end of last year that she had not used about a third of her vacation time. Last year, the assistant director of financial eduction and wellness in the university's office of student financial assistance and education took two brief trips, one for work, the other a vacation that included a conference related to her job. And she took two days off to move to a new house.

If you told me a few years ago that I would be spending my vacation days talking to Congress, I would have thought you were out of your mind. But I ended up on Capitol Hill recently, lobbying with 600 other Americans from all walks of life. We went to converse with our senators and congressmen and congresswomen on both side of the aisle. We told them what we were concerned about, offered a simple solution and asked them what they thought. We listened to them and conversed with them about meeting on common ground.

They weren't allowed to be at work, but now they're paying for being absent. Some administrative employees who were barred from the Johns Hopkins at Keswick complex in North Baltimore twice in the last two weeks because the buildings were closed due to outbreaks of illness are being told to use personal time or vacation days to make up for the time missed, Johns Hopkins officials confirmed Wednesday. Others were working overtime to catch up. For example, the majority of 284 patient financial services employees who work on the fifth floor of the Keswick complex's south building worked overtime hours three days last week - including Saturday - to make up for the day they had missed.

It began as a casual search for a vacation home on the water. Sue and Tom Graham's main residence was in Jacksonville in Baltimore County. Each had a demanding job, and they grew weary of spending long hours in a car driving to and from the beach on summer weekends. They soon learned however, that waterfront property in Anne Arundel County, as well as in many areas of Baltimore County, was well out of their budgeted price range. "We looked at cabins and dumps, lots and shacks that sold for $400,000," said Sue Graham, 54, a clinical nurse specialist for medical-supply company Cook Medical.

Former Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden received a $23,383 cash payment for 77 unused vacation days when he left office, even though elected officials have no set vacations.The payment was processed routinely as part of the final Hayden administration payroll submitted Dec. 2, his last full day on the job.During Mr. Hayden's four-year term, he saved the county $66,000 and lowered his eventual pension by accepting a salary of less than $80,000, while the official salary for executive rose to $100,700.

Former Hampstead Town Manager Neil M. Ridgely, who left the post in January after a spate of conflicts with Mayor Christopher M. Nevin, is suing the town for up to $20,000 in unpaid vacation compensation.Ridgely filed suit this week in Carroll County District Court seeking three times what he is owed for 41 unused vacation days -- $6,702 -- because previous requests for reimbursement were ignored by the mayor, said Robert J. Lynott, Ridgely's attorney.State law allows plaintiffs to seek triple their unpaid compensation, Lynott said yesterday.

Taking a sick day is not that easy for some workers. Leonard, a reader from Baltimore, argues that sick workers whose employers offer a "paid time off" or PTO bank - where vacation, sick and personal days are lumped together - show up for their job because this increasingly popular system encourages the practice called presenteeism. Leonard was responding to my recent column about the need for workers who are ill to stay home in order to get better but also to prevent passing along their sickness to colleagues.

Americans are a bunch of lazy layabouts who don't want to work and would rather live off the taxes generated by the toil of their countrymen. I hear some version of this rant repeatedly from people who believe that the American work ethic disappeared at some point in the past generation. Here on gorgeous Cape Cod, where I vacation, I've been thinking about the state of American work and workers. So let's clear up a few matters. First, American worker productivity is high and continues to rise.

Everyone begged William Lewis Moore not to go to Mississippi. His pastor told him he would get killed walking around in a sandwich board sign protesting segregation. His family worried about where he would sleep and eat. Even fellow civil rights activists told the Baltimore postal worker it was a bad idea to walk hundreds of miles through the heart of the South. But Moore insisted on hand-delivering a letter to the governor of Mississippi, urging the staunch segregationist to change.

Last week's decision by state Court of Appeals judges to allow district and circuit court judges to choose between giving up five vacation days or returning a week's salary to ease the state's budget crisis was reasonable and wise.Judges are given 27 paid vacation days a year, and during those periods the state must hire retired judges to fill in for them: The volume of cases is such that the system simply would break down if courtrooms stood empty whenever a regular judge was out. Since the substitute judges must be paid for their time, the initial plan envisioned cutting vacation days for regular judges as a way of saving on the cost of their replacements.

I'm going to begin by saying that I was not sure about this episode from the preview. Hostage situation? It's been done so many times that I feared that we may be getting the first predictable episode of “Scandal” ever. Thankfully, I was wrong. Jake is resting in Olivia's bed, wrapped in bandages and bruised all over, but still managing to be beautiful. Olivia's huddled on the floor, reeling from all that has happened. Fitz calls, wanting to explain Jake, but Olivia can't talk.

Americans are a bunch of lazy layabouts who don't want to work and would rather live off the taxes generated by the toil of their countrymen. I hear some version of this rant repeatedly from people who believe that the American work ethic disappeared at some point in the past generation. Here on gorgeous Cape Cod, where I vacation, I've been thinking about the state of American work and workers. So let's clear up a few matters. First, American worker productivity is high and continues to rise.

Everyone begged William Lewis Moore not to go to Mississippi. His pastor told him he would get killed walking around in a sandwich board sign protesting segregation. His family worried about where he would sleep and eat. Even fellow civil rights activists told the Baltimore postal worker it was a bad idea to walk hundreds of miles through the heart of the South. But Moore insisted on hand-delivering a letter to the governor of Mississippi, urging the staunch segregationist to change.

They weren't allowed to be at work, but now they're paying for being absent. Some administrative employees who were barred from the Johns Hopkins at Keswick complex in North Baltimore twice in the last two weeks because the buildings were closed due to outbreaks of illness are being told to use personal time or vacation days to make up for the time missed, Johns Hopkins officials confirmed Wednesday. Others were working overtime to catch up. For example, the majority of 284 patient financial services employees who work on the fifth floor of the Keswick complex's south building worked overtime hours three days last week - including Saturday - to make up for the day they had missed.

Tisa L. Silver-Canady, who counsels University of Maryland, Baltimore students about loan repayments and runs other financial education programs at the school, realized toward the end of last year that she had not used about a third of her vacation time. Last year, the assistant director of financial eduction and wellness in the university's office of student financial assistance and education took two brief trips, one for work, the other a vacation that included a conference related to her job. And she took two days off to move to a new house.

It appears that the proponents of the concept of mandatory sick leave, including the authors of a recent commentary in The Sun ("Investing in health," Nov. 29), have had no experience in managing staff or managing a business. Starting out as an employee in a consulting firm decades ago, I was informed that I would accrue vacation at a certain rate but was given no specific guidelines on sick leave, except that I should notify my supervisor any day I could not come to work due to illness.

The seven judges of the Maryland Court of Appeals have approved a proposed rule under which all state judges will give up either five days of vacation or a comparable amount of their pay to help Maryland's ailing budget."

When people retire, many of them receive a gold watch. If you retire from the Carroll County public school system, you can count on more than that: A hefty cash payment consisting of accumulated unused sick leave, accrued at your highest rate of pay.When R. Edward Shilling retires today as Carroll's superintendent after 30 total years in the county system, he will receive $94,401 -- $63,066 for 239.5 unused sick days and $31,335 for 59.5 unused vacation days....

Rob Annicelli's drive to stop a huge slots emporium planned near his home led him to extremes. He used vacation days to gather signatures for a referendum blocking the project, and took more time off to sit in a courtroom, monitoring a court effort to challenge the petition. He all but gave up his favorite sport of kayaking and his usual pastime watching the History Channel, and time with his family dwindled. "I don't like being bullied by anybody, whether they're a developer or a public official, and I felt someone needed to stand up for our community," said Annicelli, a 33-year-old federal employee who lives in Hanover.

Danny Black can run his closet design business from just about anywhere — his Mount Washington office, on the way to meet with clients, at home on weekends and even during his family's summer trips to Ocean City. "Most clients don't know I've gone away," said Black, vice president of Chesapeake Closets, whose duties range from securing new business to approving designs to updating the company Facebook page. "I typically don't consider any day an off-day. I am not comfortable being cut off. " Black typifies a growing number of American workers who can't seem to put down their BlackBerrys, laptops and iPads and disconnect — even if they're sitting on a beach or sailing the seas aboard a cruise ship.